This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
@DaseindustriesLtd 's 'psyop overcapacity' thesis, which is a less extreme version of this, remains the most likely scenario. It's not for a one-world government, it's to keep the Pentagon or the wider intelligence community's capability for domestic propaganda sharp without running into any political disputes or 'culture war' topics. They know the 'Voice of America' content is amateur hour compared to what China or possibly even Russia are producing for domestic consumption, there needs to be some kind of feedback mechanism so that people who've spent 50 years working on this stuff know whether it works. UFOs and similar stuff let them test what works, what doesn't, what people like, what memes succeed etc.
It is extremely unlikely that the US alone has all the world's supply of UFOs and/or that the US has agreed with every other government that had UFOs land in its territory never to reveal anything to the public. Even if such a thing had happened, that nothing ever leaked from the archives of the USSR or any non-Western or non-US country that these UFOs presumably also landed in seems equally unlikely.
The whole logic of (alien) UFOs existing but being kept secret doesn't make sense. They're secret because the USG is worried about what other countries might do with UFO technology...but that doesn't explain why other countries wouldn't also have UFOs. It doesn't explain why every major world government would secretly - and only on this one issues, seemingly - cooperate to hide this from everyone else. It doesn't explain why so much of the world's alleged UFO activity happens in the US, which makes up just 6% of the earth's landmass. ('Only the US can shoot them down' doesn't make sense, because the allegations iirc are of largely intact, ie. landed UFOs.) It doesn't explain why, if other countries do know about UFOs, they wouldn't just make the information public, since at the point when China/Russia/etc all know, there's no longer any military or technological reason not to inform the public.
Didn't you just say Chuck Schumer is sponsoring legislation that would force the USG to inform congress about aliens? I doubt 535 people are keeping their mouths shut on this issue. (Apparently, it would actually allow the senate to appoint a panel to declassify UFO reports).
I think the NY Post article is the best bet. A lot of senior congressmen, military/pentagon and intelligence officers are literally UFO nerds because they grew up during the Cold War in the peak UFO-mania period. Now they have power they're obsessed with combing through intelligence archives trying to find the secret black box ultra-classified program run independently of any other agency that's storing the alien spaceships in the Nevada desert, and they're getting ever more desperate.
Because it's a proto-religious movement, it doesn't have to make a lot of sense in worldly terms. It doesn't seem like it because it uses all these science-y terms, but every religion started with concepts plausible to the populace; how else would anyone believe? Regardless, things seen in the sky having an importance on worldly affairs is not a new religious concept.
Of course, not everyone involved is motivated for this reason, but I think that's the most comprehensive, logical explanation for its start, functioning, and persistence. UFOs are a fantastically adaptive tool for a myriad of central religious questions, as proven by their influx in new religious movements. Even outside that, it's very difficult to escape all the talk about the governments hiding these awesome technologies, obviously piloted by enlightened beings- but just you wait, the truth will come to light; and not see the parallel with the good-evil duality mytheme that still persists in the west.
The reason why government is interested is because it's a useful tool for distracting attention from new military technologies.
More options
Context Copy link
Western propaganda and hybrid war capabilities are an entire epoch ahead. The West exploits egalitarian instincts and youthful naivety & rebellion by promising liberation from irrational traditions and cultural strictures. It's extremely effective because elites in the West truly believe in the liberal BS they're peddling.
The Chinese and Russians are merely lying in an organised manner to advance narrow political interests.
The West is subsuming everything into their own system based on curating giant ecosystems of NGOs, activists to launder the influence of interests of powerful entities.
(e.g. the eco-activism pushing denuclearisation was subsidized by green energy and natural gas companies, with the activists being mostly naive to why they're being donated to)
If ‘deep state propaganda’ is so good, why couldn’t they prevent Trump winning in 2016? I don’t think they’re as confident as you think.
Trump specifically addressed things that have been sidelined from politics: immigration by relentless pressure.
I'd also argue that Americans who have been under this regime the longest are probably more resistant to it now. Trump promised change, they believed their own polls and failed to 'fortify' the elections.
Also, America doesn't have that much need to wage hybrid war on itself.
Just as you can't get a good fire going on in a desert, the full potency of liberation meme Americans bring only ever manifests in traditional societies, where there is social capital to burn and something to rail against. In America the activists are forced to rail against 'white supremacy' and 'toxic masculinity', meanwhile somewhere with a functioning, non-atomised societies they have real targets, not phantasms.
Don't get me wrong, they're trying but it seems half-hearted and there's been a lot of time for the population to develop some sort of resistance.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Yeah but that's new. As far as I know this is Schumer's first foray into the alien issue. The other representatives I mentioned have been crusading for years.
Everything else you say makes sense though.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link